A blog for Literature and Culture of the Middles Ages (ENGL:3226:0001)

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Bodies

Carolyn
Dinshaw suggests in “Pale Faces: Race Religion, and Affect in Chacer’s Texts
and Their Readers” that in The Man of
Law’s Tale is a belief that the color of your skin had a direct
correspondence with the religion that you practiced. This perceived relationship
was paleness/whiteness with Christianity and a non-whiteness with Islam. This
relationship between skin and the body with religious faith is present in Stronghold
Crusader, an R.T.S. (real time strategy) videogame, set during the crusades.

In the 50
mission campaign of Stronghold Crusader, the gamer is presented both European
and Arabian opponents to overcome. While playing the game, these enemies will
dialogue with you, appearing in the right hand corner of the screen so you can
see them as they speak. Though there is no relationship between the bodies of
the European opponents and Christianity, there is a relationship between the
bodies of the Arabian opponents and Islam, which effects the threat that these
opponents pose the player.

Though the context of the games is
the crusades, there is an interesting absence of religious imagery or reference
in the game. The gamer may assume that the Arabian characters are Muslim and
that the European characters are Christian, but this distinction is almost never
explicitly made within the game. There is only one character within this game
that has been given any explicit, religious context, The Caliph.

This title, caliph, has a
particular religious significance. A caliph was a political and religious leader
who ruled in accordance to Islamic law. After the death of Muhammad this was the
title given to the political leaders who succeeded him as the rulers of the
Islamic state (the caliphate). The character, The Caliph, is extremely
aggressive, whether he is fighting against you or fighting along side you. His
military strategy is brutal: he is one of the few characters to throw boiling
oil over his walls on attackers, and is the only character who will put pitch
on the ground to light enemies on fire if they come too near his walls. He is
cruel in his economic strategy as well, using the games negative aspect of its
“fear factor” system to bully his civilians into working harder by building
dungeons, stocks, and various torture devices to frighten them. When he speaks
he issues threats and insults in his dialogues with the player.

This aggression makes The Caliph a
very formidable opponent to the gamer. Whenever we see him on the screen as he
speaks, we see that his body is incredibly dark. The gamer can see his dark
body as he threatens violence and refers to the gamer as “infidel”. He is
always in a posture of aggression, wielding a sword, shaking his fist, or
glaring.

The Caliph contrasts dramatically
with only other non-historically specific, Arabian character, The Sultan. This
title, sultan, is a title that also denotes a position of leadership but has a
more secular context than the title of caliph. The Sultan is an extremely
agreeable character, both as an ally and, amusingly, as an enemy. The majority
of The Sultan’s dialogue is poetic, featuring naturalistic metaphor and analogy.
He is never rude or aggressive in his address regardless of whether he is
working with you or against you. Likewise the Sultan’s economic strategy
reflects his good nature; he uses the positive dynamic of the game’s “fear
factor” system to build flowerbeds and statues to increase his popularity with
his people.

The Sultan is very peaceable, and
as such, is a much easier enemy for the gamer to battle against. In every
dialogue with The Sultan, his body is much lighter in comparison to the body of
The Caliph just as the threat he poses is much lighter. His light body is
always relaxed, he gesticulates in a friendly manner, and his body is always
framed in a peaceful setting.

The bodies of these characters are
a reflection of the threat that these characters pose to the gamer. Through his
title, the character The Caliph has been framed in a religious context, whereas
the Sultan has nothing that explicitly ties him to what we may infer is his
faith. This religious affiliation has a direct relationship to the respective
darkness and lightness to the Muslim bodies of these persons within Stronghold
Crusader. Just as in The Man of Law’s Tale, we see a direct relationship here between
the body and religious faith.